Will you give God time to work?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. James 1:3-4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

The trying of your faith is going to develop patience in you. The Amplified Bible says, “Let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed in your faith, lacking in nothing.”

When was the last time you asked God to make you perfect? You should have asked for patience as well, because it’s only through patient, abiding faith and trust in the Lord that we become “perfect.”

Most people confuse this word “perfect” with “sinless.” The Greek word for “perfect” in James 1:4 is “teleios”—it refers to “maturing growth.” Not sinless, but fully matured. For example, an oak tree is the “teleios” of an acorn. It is the “perfection” of an acorn, which has now come to maturity.

So when you are discouraged and feeling a little blue, 

Take a look at a mighty oak and see what a nut can do.

We say, “O God, get me out of this test,” when God wants to keep you right in it until you grow more, until you’re more mature, until you're strong. God doesn't want you to live weakly, then die feebly. He wants you to grow and be “teleios”— perfectly mature.

ACTION POINT:

Take a walk this week, enjoying the beauty of God’s creation, and ask Him to give you the patience and faith that can turn a little acorn into a mighty oak.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers